my greatest learning experience was in a figure drawing class. My teacher
took my pencil and drew in the margin the correct way of seeing. While
doing so, she also talked me through her thinking process of what she was
trying to accomplish. That experience strengthened my skills as an artist
and I practice her strategy to this day. Her words of wisdom included:
"Draw the shapes of things, not the things!" If anyone else is proficient
in drawing, you what those words mean.

As a result of this practice in my classroom I can hear the students
prompting each other with those same words as response to someone's cry of
"I can't draw this!" I seems to me that a result of students' instant
appetites for success, they often reach for the first available tool.
Sometimes that tool is incorrect - like painting fine detail with a mop type
brush. My first reaction to a student's frustration is to check their
tools. I check their physical approach next. Did they make a work
environment for themselves? Or are their papers and notebooks crowding
their workspace? I tell them to "get out of their own way" and set up a
workspace.

I have also noticed that tasks that include exacto-knife cutting are rarely
a sit-down job. Painting is also not a sit-down job and I tell them as
much. In turn, they mock me and push their stools out of the way to create
a better working environment.

I rarely need to draw on a student's work anymore. They are able to correct
themselves, stand up to get the blood flowing and decide to engage for
success on their own.

Just have to add my two cents to the never-ending saga of to draw or not to
draw on a students work.

Teachers! wake up, art is a visual experience! Take a pad of tracing paper
with you as you walk around the room. If a student has a difficulty,,,teach
by showing, not bull****ing. Lay the tracing paper on the spot and
demonstrate...that is if you can...